A 10GHz Complementary Cross-Coupled VCO with Wide Tuning Range and Low Power Consumption for Biomedical Applications

A complementary cross-coupled pairs LC-voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) with only one symmetrical inductor is implemented in TSMC 0.18-um CMOS process for 10 GHz band application. At the supply voltage of 1.8 V, measured results achieve a wide tuning range of 9.6 to 11.08 GHz, corresponding to 13.9 %, a low phase noise of -115.1 dBc/Hz at a 1 MHz offset frequency from 10.02 GHz with a tuned controlled voltage from 0 to 1.7 V and an output power of -2.231 dBm with a 50-W load. The power consumption of core circuit is pretty low and is 1.54 mW. The chip area including pads is 0.61x0.66 (0.37) mm(2). The proposed VCO, without the need of any off-chip device, is well suitable for the system integration of wireless and wearable technologies in healthcare systems.